Gut protein is associated with the risk of HIV infection

Recently, scientists have found for the first time that the key immune cells that express the intestinal "homing" protein a4b7 highly during HIV infection have an impact on the health of patients   In this study, the authors found that women with higher levels of a4b7 expression and more CD4 T cells had a higher risk of HIV infection and a faster rate of virus damage to the immune system The results were published in the latest issue of Science Translational Medicine   The authors first compared the proportion of subsets with high expression of a4b7 protein in CD4 T cells in 59 patients before HIV infection and 106 healthy people The results showed that the proportion of CD4 T cells with high expression of a4b7 affected the risk of HIV infection to some extent Specifically, for every 1% increase in the number of cells in this subgroup, the risk of HIV will increase by about 18%   In addition, the proportion of a4b7 protein overexpression subpopulation cells will also affect the rate of HIV damage the immune system (nearly twice) The molecular mechanism may be related to the destruction of intestinal homeostasis by HIV, because the researchers found that the high level of a4b7 expression was accompanied by the increase of intestinal damage biomarker level   The researchers found that HIV can target and recognize CD4 T cells with high expression of a4b7 protein in the early stage of infection, while art in the early stage of infection does not prevent the loss of CD4 T cells or promote the reconstruction of damaged cells   "These findings suggest that we need interventions other than art to restore the number of CD4 T cells in the gut of people with HIV," said Dr McKinnon "One way is to target the antibody vedolizumab of a4b7, which has been approved by the FDA for the treatment of ulcerative enteritis and Crohn's disease.".